Chief Scientific Advisers: S&T Committee Report

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who made some very good points. They will be recorded in the minutes. It reminds me of my mother-in-law, who, whenever we had an argument, said, “You’ll be right, Phil”, which was a good way of ending it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the chairman of the committee, for his patience and tolerance during an inquiry which could have gone nowhere but turned out to be incredibly important. Like him, I was disappointed by the Government’s initial response. It is a testimony to his skills of diplomacy that he went back to Sir Bob Kerslake, the Head of the Civil Service, and got a set of responses which “clarified”—I love that word—the Government’s response such that they were far more in support of many of the recommendations which the report made. While that was not ideal, and there is still a long way to go, it was a useful thing for the chairman to do, being a good way of having an interface rather than simply accepting the Government’s position.

This report was not intended as an assault on the Government’s lack of support for DCSAs; in fact, quite the opposite is true, as I think most members of the committee would agree. We recognise just how significant has been successive Governments’ support for this layer of scientific advice for Ministers. It is because it is such an important layer of support that we felt the inquiry was important. Our report sought to ensure that the current system was at least maintained given some of the assaults being made on it and, where possible, enhanced at a time when there were worrying signs that DCSAs were being seen as a luxury that could be dispensed with rather than as an investment to underpin sound evidence-based policy.

My interest in this area arose in the House of Commons when I was chair of the science committee. Many of our inquiries looked at evidence-based policy. The previous Government and this Government proudly say that their policies are based on evidence. It is the job of parliamentarians in both Houses and those outside who scrutinise government policy constantly to ask, “Where is the evidence to support that policy? Where there is no evidence to support that policy, how are you actually going to find the evidence in order to take it forward?”. That is a very good principle. It is the principle of scrutiny, and scientific advisers, both at department level and particularly the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, have a crucial role to play in it.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, rightly pointed out that there is no lack of scientific advice available to Ministers. In addition to the Government Chief Scientific Adviser and the Government Office for Science, advisory committees, learned societies, professional institutes and countless think tanks put a stream of advice into the public arena which is available for Ministers. The reality is that much of it is not listened to or even read, but the roles of the DCSA and the Government Chief Scientific Adviser are fundamentally different. The individuals holding these posts have the crucial interface between the scientific, academic and commercial world and that of civil servants and Ministers. Their function is not simply to offer advice; in many ways, it is more a challenge function than an advisory one. As the noble Lord, Lord Broers, said in our committee yesterday, they need sharp elbows, demanding presence where it is sometimes not wanted and demanding resources where sometimes they are not available in order to provide evidence as to whether policy can work, or at least whether it has a chance of working. As our report emphasised, their value lies, first, in their independence, the currency of their expertise and their standing within the scientific and commercial community. To carry out that function, they should be appointed at a very senior level. They should have a seat on departmental boards, as they are part of the policy-making as well as implementation machinery, and they should retain their academic or industrial base to remain current.

Why is that needed? Given that every utterance from the Prime Minister and his Ministers—every single challenge facing this nation from ageing to obesity and from the environment to the economy—will require science and engineering solutions, objective scientific advice is not simply desirable but absolutely critical. According to research from the Science Council, 20% of the UK workforce depends on scientific skills to do their job. Some 5.8 million people are currently employed in science-based occupations, and this will increase to more than 7 million by 2030.

To manage and lead this “scientific century”, we need, but do not have, a scientifically literate political class. However, only 11% of MPs have ever had science-based careers and only one MP has come directly from the research laboratory. Not a single member of the current Cabinet is a science graduate. Only five out of 42 Permanent Secretaries have a science or engineering degree, and fewer than 4% of civil servants have a science or engineering background. Indeed, as was said by our previous Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King, it was an impediment to progress to admit to having a scientific background.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the response to the budget deficit by departments has been to slash departmental spending on R&D and, in some cases, to downgrade their DCSA or, worse still, to delay appointing altogether, as in the case of the DCMS until very recently. In fact, only the DECC is to be credited with bucking that trend by spending more in terms of science. The reasoning defies logic. It is true that BIS has maintained a flat cash settlement during the current CSR for science funding for research councils and for HEFCE—that is very welcome, although in real terms it is a 12% cut—but that appears to have been used as a signal to departments to reduce spending on science. Had reductions come as a percentage of the overall budget, perhaps one could argue that they were “taking their fair share”, but no. Defra, despite the problems that it is currently experiencing, has reduced its R&D budget by 15%, the Department for Transport by 47%, the Ministry of Justice by 27% and the CLG by 45%. The figure for the Department for Education has actually gone up, but that for the FCO is down by 45%, the DWP by 17% and the Ministry of Defence by 11%. That is unacceptable. To argue for science within departments requires powerful, influential and challenging DCSAs to ensure that policy decisions are at least made on an evidential basis rather than on one of political convenience. No one on the Science and Technology Committee argues that DCSAs should make political decisions, nor did we argue in our report that their view should always trump other considerations. However, they are there to provide good evidence and to make clear that when their evidence is not taken by Ministers, they should be fully aware of the consequences. You cannot do that if you hide all those arguments in a back room somewhere; they have to be made public, and resources are needed in order to do that.

The lower the grade of the DCSA, of course, the more difficult it is for them to argue their case. While access to the Permanent Secretary is clearly important, it does not compensate for direct contact with Ministers. It surely does not say a great deal for the status of the DCSA who stated to our inquiry that she could not recall ever having had a meeting with the Secretary of State. Equally, we found the justification of tagging the DCSA role on to an existing brief neither convincing nor acceptable. How can the DCSA in Health provide a challenge when as Chief Medical Officer she is the lead on policy? How can the DCSA in the Treasury perform his challenge function when he is in charge of public spending? I am delighted that he no longer has that function and has only the role of chief microeconomist to contend with.

The report on DCSAs was timely, pertinent and crucial. The Government’s amended response is encouraging and I hope that in 12 months’ time, when the new GCSA is in place, they will have met even further some of our concerns.

I take this opportunity to applaud Sir John Beddington and the way in which he has fought for the departmental scientific advisory service, the way in which he has brought the DCSAs into an informal but effective cross-government group and for his championing of science in government. I recognise, too, the genuinely remarkable talent that exists within our GCSA ranks. Sadly, one of the brightest stars, Sir Bob Watson, is returning to the States after his stint at Defra. His knowledge, wit and wisdom will be sadly missed. Perhaps the new DCSA at Defra will find a homoeopathic remedy for bovine TB to avoid the badger cull.